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It was easy to down one balloon during peace-time. You're right. Please see my comment further below for why that might not work in aggregate during a real mil

It was easy to down one balloon during peace-time. You're right. Please see my comment further below for why that might not work in aggregate during a real military conflict. Edit: I'll paste it here in case it gets buried: I really do wonder if this is them testing that they can reliably and cheaply get high-altitude balloons to the U.S. mainland. In the event of a military conflict, I can imagine them swarming us with these. They must cost far, far less than the average American military aircraft. If our air power becomes partly tied up defending Taiwan, dropping bombs from craft like these might be an effective strategy to demoralize the U.S. population. I commented this above but I feel it's worth repeating here: the only casualties in the U.S. mainland during WW2 were Japanese balloons dropping bombs on the west coast[1]. I also wonder if this operation will end up backfiring. Suddenly, lots of people in the U.S. have Chinese aggression on their mind. Knowing Americans pretty well, I would expect this to actually increase public support for the defense of Taiwan. Inshallah. 1. https://amp.smh.com.au/world/north-america/when-japanese-balloons-menaced-american-skies-during-world-war-ii-20230204-p5chvt.html https://amp.smh.com.au/world/north-america/when-japanese-bal...

breck 4y ago
I thought the whole thing was blown out of proportion and was almost certainly a weather balloon mistake, but I forgot about that WWII anecdote, and you are absolutely right. The odds of it actually being related to military just went up a lot in my calculations.
luckylion 4y ago
Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't you just need a single plane with a machine gun on board to take down hundreds of these if you cared to take them down? And you can spot them far, far away and take them down far away from the coast, can't you? I mean, they can't really do evasive maneuvers, they're not fast, they don't fight back, they're not armored, you wouldn't need super modern missiles.
- credit_guy 4y ago
  It appears this particular balloon was traveling at 60000 feet altitude. The flight ceiling of an F-22 is 50000 (according to the internet, although the actual number is very likely classified). If that's correct, then shooting a balloon from 10000 feet below with a machine gun is not easy. Even if you put some holes in it, such a balloon is not going to simply pop like a party balloon. It very likely does not have a pressure differential between the inside and the outside, so the holes will simply allow the air to mix slowly (very slowly) with the lifting gas inside (hydrogen or helium). It will probably take days or weeks before the balloon goes down.
  - GauntletWizard 4y ago
    The effective range of the F-22's Vulcan Cannon is 2000 feet - That's where you expect about a quarter of the shots to hit... When you're talking about a fighter-jet sized target. The bullets will easily travel, still at kill velocity, well beyond that. I have no doubts that for a slow moving target such as a balloon, they can spray and pray, and pop it every time.
    - credit_guy 4y ago
      You might be right. On the other hand, today they used a missile. Such a missile costs about $200k, while a Vulcan round is under $20 (collectors can buy one round for $20, see [1], the military can probably buy in bulk for much less). Maybe they just wanted to show off. But maybe it's just not that easy to take down a high flying balloon with unguided munitions. [1] https://www.gunbroker.com/item/968543844 https://www.gunbroker.com/item/968543844
- chitowneats 4y ago
  My understanding as a layman is that we cannot shoot objects at altitudes 60,000ft+ with machine guns. We need fighter jets equipped with specialized missiles, or ground-based SAMs, that are very expensive, and have some limitation on their range.
colechristensen 4y ago
Meh, countermeasures for even lots of balloons are not difficult to imagine.
- dividedbyzero 4y ago
  For lots of balloons way out of reach of fighter aircraft? What is there apart from expensive missiles that can operate at such altitudes?
  - christophilus 4y ago
    Balloons carrying EMPs?
    - loyukfai 4y ago
      This came up my mind too. Have read that a high altitude EMP bomb would cause havoc on modern infrastructure. Not sure about the details though. Hope someone knowledge can chime in.
      - colechristensen 4y ago
        “EMP” is mostly a Hollywood thing. Not that is entirely fabricated or anything, but it’s almost entirely popular science articles and action movies, very little real weapons systems, and the movies create a lot of misconceptions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_warfare https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_warfare is the closest related thing. What you would actually do is see if you could jam its comms, hit it with a laser (these exist as actual practical weapons these days), or engineer tiny high altitude anti aircraft missiles, either something that already exists or small mods to existing tech for the use case.
  - pixl97 4y ago
    The US has done tons of research on high energy lasers to the point we had weapons that could target ICBMs. Now for anti-missile they weren't terribly practical, but for a large slow ballon its possible they could be. I've not found any research on lazing balloons, but I guess it exists out there somewhere.

breck 4y ago

I thought the whole thing was blown out of proportion and was almost certainly a weather balloon mistake, but I forgot about that WWII anecdote, and you are absolutely right. The odds of it actually being related to military just went up a lot in my calculations.

luckylion 4y ago

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't you just need a single plane with a machine gun on board to take down hundreds of these if you cared to take them down? And you can spot them far, far away and take them down far away from the coast, can't you? I mean, they can't really do evasive maneuvers, they're not fast, they don't fight back, they're not armored, you wouldn't need super modern missiles.

credit_guy 4y ago
It appears this particular balloon was traveling at 60000 feet altitude. The flight ceiling of an F-22 is 50000 (according to the internet, although the actual number is very likely classified). If that's correct, then shooting a balloon from 10000 feet below with a machine gun is not easy. Even if you put some holes in it, such a balloon is not going to simply pop like a party balloon. It very likely does not have a pressure differential between the inside and the outside, so the holes will simply allow the air to mix slowly (very slowly) with the lifting gas inside (hydrogen or helium). It will probably take days or weeks before the balloon goes down.
- GauntletWizard 4y ago
  The effective range of the F-22's Vulcan Cannon is 2000 feet - That's where you expect about a quarter of the shots to hit... When you're talking about a fighter-jet sized target. The bullets will easily travel, still at kill velocity, well beyond that. I have no doubts that for a slow moving target such as a balloon, they can spray and pray, and pop it every time.
  - credit_guy 4y ago
    You might be right. On the other hand, today they used a missile. Such a missile costs about $200k, while a Vulcan round is under $20 (collectors can buy one round for $20, see [1], the military can probably buy in bulk for much less). Maybe they just wanted to show off. But maybe it's just not that easy to take down a high flying balloon with unguided munitions. [1] https://www.gunbroker.com/item/968543844 https://www.gunbroker.com/item/968543844
chitowneats 4y ago
My understanding as a layman is that we cannot shoot objects at altitudes 60,000ft+ with machine guns. We need fighter jets equipped with specialized missiles, or ground-based SAMs, that are very expensive, and have some limitation on their range.

colechristensen 4y ago

Meh, countermeasures for even lots of balloons are not difficult to imagine.

dividedbyzero 4y ago
For lots of balloons way out of reach of fighter aircraft? What is there apart from expensive missiles that can operate at such altitudes?
- christophilus 4y ago
  Balloons carrying EMPs?
  - loyukfai 4y ago
    This came up my mind too. Have read that a high altitude EMP bomb would cause havoc on modern infrastructure. Not sure about the details though. Hope someone knowledge can chime in.
    - colechristensen 4y ago
      “EMP” is mostly a Hollywood thing. Not that is entirely fabricated or anything, but it’s almost entirely popular science articles and action movies, very little real weapons systems, and the movies create a lot of misconceptions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_warfare https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_warfare is the closest related thing. What you would actually do is see if you could jam its comms, hit it with a laser (these exist as actual practical weapons these days), or engineer tiny high altitude anti aircraft missiles, either something that already exists or small mods to existing tech for the use case.
- pixl97 4y ago
  The US has done tons of research on high energy lasers to the point we had weapons that could target ICBMs. Now for anti-missile they weren't terribly practical, but for a large slow ballon its possible they could be. I've not found any research on lazing balloons, but I guess it exists out there somewhere.